Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.
LOUD, SO LOUD, BUT GREAT PERFORMANCE
A few weeks ago, my wife and I had the privilege of going to the Auckland Town Hall and enjoyed hearing and seeing the New Zealand Youth Orchestra perform. The New Zealand Youth Orchestra is made up of budding musicians, ranging between the ages of 15 and 24 years old. This year they performed only once in Auckland and once in Wellington; but after all, this orchestra is not made up of professional musicians. There are high-school students and university students in the orchestra although, of course, many of them want to become professional musicians. The NZYO performed wonderfully to a packed audience. Alright, I am not an expert in classical music, but I love listening to it and I thought the NZYO’s performance was as polished as the best symphony orchestras are.
Of course there were the standard distractions. Many in the audience were obviously proud mothers and fathers and many other off-springs and cousins, some of whom had never been to a symphony concert before. So there was the inevitable clapping of hands between movements of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and between each part of Richard Strauss’s Four Lieder. Obviously the conductor, a genial Canadian chap called Adam Johnson, was at first a little surprised by this, but he soon took to turning around briefly and nodding to the audience before getting on with the next movement. Maybe he was used to this faux pas.
Then there was for me a mild annoyance. Sitting right in front of me were a little boy and a little girl – aged about seven and five, I would guess – who wriggled and wriggled throughout the performance. In fairness, however, with Mum and Dad on either side of them, they did not make any noises. Another distraction was people walking into the town hall long after the music had started, and noisily finding their places.
So, apart from my grumpy comments in the last two paragraphs, I make it clear that the New Zealand Youth Orchestra was outstanding.
BUT [you knew that word was coming] I have one grouse. If you put together all the talented young people who are aiming to become professional musicians and who are part of the NZYO, then you have to accommodate all the young violists, violaists, celloists, brass of all sorts, woodwind of all sorts, tympany, French Horns, core anglais etc. etc. You have to choose music that will make use of every possible member of the whole ensemble. So the music has to be, not just loud [apart from string quartets and soloists, all classical music is loud] but it has to be grandiose, very loud in many places and, appealing to youngsters, romantic, often sobbing, often shouting assertively. Thus it was. Battering my ear-drums at the concert came Richard Strauss’s Don Juan. Yes, a busy, shouting, sobbing, self-pitying grandiose thing. Confession: I loved it when I was a teenager. I even bought a record of it [vinyl naturally] and played it over and over. And now? Well it’s fitting for teenagers. As for Sergei Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony – erm – it too is a grandiose sobbing this, adored by me when I was younger. The lovely Four Lieder of Richard Strauss were naturally a quieter thing and Luka Venter’s avant-garde Glacier was interesting, so I can’t complain too much. But next time folks, why don’t you choose at the top of the bill some jolly, non-self-pitying thing for the very talented young musicians. How about Le boeuf sur le toit?… though maybe the trumpeters would be left out.
Oh dear. Very hard to find the right piece. And aren't I just too picky?
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